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<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">Dear all,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">Please find the below a call for papers.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">Feel free to forward it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">Very kind regards Sten<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Call for Research Papers<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">"Affective Interaction with Avatars" workshop to be held in conjunction with the European Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AMI'15).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">11-13 November 2015 - Athens, Greece<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Avatars, also known as Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs), have been successfully employed in several domains, including gaming, education, health, training etc. Recently, the domain of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)
has also been active in incorporating avatars as a front-end interface for elderly oriented solutions and services. Avatars provide an intuitive and natural way for elderly users to interact with intelligent systems that offer services or help them with their
daily activities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Since emotions play a fundamental role in human communication, within the scope of AAL, the affective capabilities an agent employs have strong impact on the perception of its intelligence, quality of interaction, and
more importantly, on user engagement. Affective interaction involves several aspects like the recognition of the user’s affective state, based for example on speech and video processing, the computational modelling of the agent’s affective state and behaviour,
expression of affect via animated facial and/or bodily expressions, dialogue management which gracefully handles errors and interruptions, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Successfully addressing open challenges in these domains can increase the frequency and quality of interaction, leading to a better acceptance of the agents and, in general, of AAL solutions. Principles of affective interaction
may be similarly applied to robot-based systems to gain similar benefits in the domain on Ambient Intelligence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The aim of this workshop is to focus on research contributions related to affective interaction with avatars.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Affect recognition using different modalities, e.g. physiological signals, voice, facial expressions, and gestures<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Affect fusion from different modalities under different time constraints<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Advanced dialogue management for affective avatar interaction<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Computational models of moods, emotions, personalities and memory<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Affective and empathic behaviour in expressive avatars<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">- Evaluation studies and case studies from a point of view of practical applications<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Important Dates<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">---------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Timely submission of the papers is critical to the success of the program. The procedures and timetable enumerated below will apply.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">1. Deadline for submissions - July 15, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">2. Notification to authors - August 15, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">3. Deadline for camera ready papers - September 1, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Accepted papers will be published as an online CEUR Volume (see
<a href="http://ceur-ws.org/">http://ceur-ws.org/</a> for further details), indexed in SCOPUS. Submissions should follow the publication policies of CEUR detailed
<a href="http://ceur-ws.org/HOWTOSUBMIT.html">http://ceur-ws.org/HOWTOSUBMIT.html</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Formatting Instructions<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">-----------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Position papers (2 to 4 pages) must be written in English and submitted in PDF format. The AML'15 proceedings will be published by Springer and therefore all submissions should conform to the formatting instructions described
in the "For Authors" webpage (<a href="http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0">http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0</a>). In case your paper includes images or screenshots please ensure that you set image compression
at 600dpi when you produce your PDF file.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Submission<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">----------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Papers must be submitted in electronic format (PDF) via the conference's EasyChair submission page. More details can be found on the workshop's website at
<a href="http://www.miraculous-life.eu/ws-affin">http://www.miraculous-life.eu/ws-affin</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">According to the Registration Regulation for AML'15, inclusion of papers in the Proceedings is conditional upon registration of at least one author per paper.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Organization<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Carsten Stockloew, Fraunhofer IGD, Germany<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Sten Hanke, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Maher Ben Moussa, University of Geneva, Switzerland<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Panayiotis Andreou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Christiana Tsiourti, University of Geneva, Switzerland<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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